An internet user typically employs a browser to access the WWW. The most popular browsers are Netscape's Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Often a user wishes to download data from various sites. The user may be linked to these sites during certain periods of the day in which either the internet of the server at the linked sites may be very busy. Downloading at such times could take a very long time. The user may not wish to tie up his browser, or the computer in which the browser is housed, for such a long time. In addition, the connections may require connect charges billed on a per minute basis.
The widespread availability of WWW phones, Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), and Windows-based CE machines with internet connectivity are expected to soon provide internet access capability to larger portions of the earth's population, thereby making efficient techniques to access WWW pages (web pages) even more desirable.
For many users an internet connection made at home some time in the middle of the night may be lower in cost than a connection made during peak phone-rate hours while travelling.
At present there exist several techniques that are known to the inventor for indicating specific web pages to be downloaded at a later time. These techniques download the requested pages to the same (requesting) machine at a later time, for example at night when phone rates are lower and internet traffic is reduced.
There also exist so-called push technology schemes, such as one known as Pointcast.TM., that periodically download information from certain sites to a given data processor. A user can schedule, for example, news, stock, and/or weather information to be downloaded at specific times or at specific intervals. However, these techniques also download the requested information to the requesting data processor.
Other techniques, such as one known as Webwhacker.TM., enable a user to make a local copy of a web site, and allow the user to specify a number of links (i.e., Hyperlinks) to follow and download.
A technology available from the assignee of this patent application, referred to as ARTour WebExpress.TM., allows a user to browse the web more asynchronously than is possible with current browsers. For example, using conventional WWW browsers such as Netscape Navigator.TM. 3.0 or Internet Explorer.TM. 3.0 the user can scroll a current page while a next page is being downloaded, thereby providing a degree of asynchronous access. The WebExpress.TM. technique takes this one level further by allowing the user to continue to specify links (Hyperlinks) to fetch while previously specified pages are being fetched. These requests are queued by in a local buffer and the pages are fetched in a sequential manner. When the requested pages are available on the local machine, the user is made aware of it by a suitable signaling mechanism.
A proxy server is a World Wide Web server that acts as the sole web server for an entire domain, or for those client computers that are placed behind a firewall (i.e., a logical block between the clients and the rest of the internet). The proxy server typically resides at the firewall and intercepts all web requests originating from clients within the firewall. If a given web page request is not in the proxy server's access control list, the request is processed normally and the retrieved web page is sent back to the requesting client. If, however, the requested web page or web site is on the control list, the client instead receives a message indicating that the URL is not accessible or is not valid.
A proxy server can improve a network's performance by functioning as a caching server. Using its cached web pages, the proxy server will serve already-accessed web pages to requesting clients without requiring outside access to the internet. For example, consider a case of an environment where n client computers access the same web page, wherein each client computer outputs the address (URL) of the web page to be accessed. Without the use of the proxy server, n separate requests for the web page are initiated, and n separate copies of that same web page are retrieved and returned to the client computers.
Using a proxy server, however, the same n web page requests are handled more efficiently. Only the first request to reach the proxy server actually causes that web page to be retrieved from the WWW server, and only if that web page is not already stored in the proxy server's cache. When retrieved, the web page is sent back to the requesting client computer, and is also cached on the proxy server's hard disk. The remaining n-1 clients that request that same web page are then served instead from the proxy server's cache, thus avoiding unnecessary duplicated requests and delays.
An article by L. B. Rosenfeld and M. P. Holland (Online, Vol. 18, no. 3, pp 27-30, May 1994) discusses an internet filtering system which automatically downloads postings daily.
An article by T. Jaeger and A. D. Rubin (Proc. of Symp. on Network and Distributed System Security, IEEE Computer Soc. Press, pp 53-63, 1996) discusses an automated file location and retrieval system which retrieves files and software across the internet.
A web page from Traveling Software (http://www.travsoft.com/press.sub.-- room/webex.htm) discloses a software downloading package known as WebEx which allows a user to select which web sites to download as well as when to begin the downloading operation. For this method to work, the receiving client must be powered on. Also the downloading will occur no matter what bandwidth is established between the server and the receiving client. This may not be desirable, as in the case where costs are proportional to the time spent for the link to be operational, and when the link is of very low bandwidth, thereby making the download expensive.
However, none of the existing techniques that are known to the inventors enable web pages and other data to be downloaded to this or anoter machine at some other specified time, whether on not that machine is powered on or not. Nor do any of the existing techniques that are known to the inventors enable data to be downloaded only if a minimum prescribed bandwidth between the server and the receiving client is obtained.